My mother-in-law gave me her wiz-bang sewing machine that does everything from embroidery and monograms, to darning and surging. The only problem is there are so many bells and whistles that I have to read the instruction book before I can even thread the needle or wind the bobbin. I’m not really into sewing and I don’t want to read the manual every time I need to mend a simple seam. The frustrating feelings take me back to being a new babe in Christ. When all I needed was an answer to a simple spiritual question, looking at the Bible was daunting …just give me the Cliff Notes. For a long time it was easier to go to someone like the preacher, who had all the answers. I think there’s an unwritten law somewhere that requires all children to master the Lord’s Prayer and John 3:16…which I did. But it wasn’t until my teen that I really took a verse and made it my own. “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2Timothy 2:15 KJV)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I don’t know how many electronic devices I own that will do many times more things than for what I actually use them. I share the same frustration about copious instructions and simple tasks. So I, too, just learn my way through doing the few things I need to do with a device and pay no mind to the rest of its features. One might think this would be a careless way to approach the new life and the Word of God. I certainly felt compelled to know its instructions more thoroughly after the first couple years of my new life. And I am very glad I allowed that compulsion to drive me. But what I have come to see in the Word about the new life is that in one way it is very like the complex gadgets with their detailed instructions, but in another significant way, it is very different.
-----In a perfect world everyone would have the time and interest to thoroughly explore and use whatever device they had. But we live in a very imperfect world. Most complex devices are used to do whatever level of service the user desires while he ignores the rest of the bells and whistles. And they perform satisfactorily in their partial use. Thank God the new life really works well this way. The usual shmooze is that the only Christian life pleasing to God is the one sparkling clean and shiny around every corner and in every cranny. God loves perfection. Indeed He will allow nothing less into His eternal kingdom. But the truth is that no one even nearly has it now. So we are saved by His grace and must admit to being presently only partially sparkling. That is why the messages at Romans 12, I Corinthians 12, and I Peter 4:10-11 are so meaningful. We are going through our cleaning process, and the areas of each life which God has adequately spiffed up become useful amongst the brethren, serving in good fit with others beside you being still rather rusty in their comparable areas.
-----Paul does say to study and show yourself approved. Yet he said it to Timothy, one who had the responsibility of being a leader. Although this does not deplete the saying of its value to the rest of us who are not elders, preachers, and such, it indicates a relationship between relevance and responsibility. To the rest of us shleppers, we are given charge to follow their examples. Instructing the general body on giving answer, Paul tells the Colossians to speak graciously with salty seasoning (4:6), and he tells the Corinthians to know the character of their leaders (II Cor 5:6-15.)
-----The new life and its instructions differ from our gadgets in that the instructions for the new life actually anticipate no one will use it to its fullest. They are replete with precautions for the effects of its minimal use: forbearance, forgiveness, graciousness, acceptance, and the likes. They even intimate that God plays a role in how fully an individual lives the new life (Rom 12:3; I Cor 7:17; James 3:1; I Cor 12:11, 18, 24-25; Rom 14:4; etc.) And although the instructions make allowance for those who live the new life minimally (I Cor 3:15), they give encouragement to live it more fully (Eph 4:11-14; Heb 5:12-14.) The fundamental purpose of the new life is to provide a secure vehicle for delivering our sorry backsides across the threshold of death into eternal bliss. Whether one takes up full crew duty while aboard or merely finds adequate seating, all its passengers will arrive intact with it, however invested were their rides.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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